Office Hours with Adora Cheung

Alright, hey everyone! Today we have Dore Chun. She's a YC partner and co-founder of Homejoy. Thank you! How's it going?

Good, how are you?

Good! Alright, we're gonna do some office hour questions from the internet, so let's go!

Cool! So first question is from Topher Peterson, and he asks, "How many users do you have when you applied to YC, and also how much revenue had you generated?"

So when we applied to YC back in 2010, we were a company called Atimepath Joyjoy, and we were a marketplace for online services. So we were trying to bring on typically offline services like tutoring, life coaching, therapy, and all these legal services online. Our thesis was this was the time to put it to video, and we would be the ones to do it.

Mhm.

And so when we applied, if I remember correctly, we had onboarded a lot of people for the supply side of stuff, so service providers, but had onboarded absolutely no one yet on the demand side. So we had obviously generated no revenue yet, but that's what we had only.

Okay, and this was 2010?

2010.

Okay, and had you started a company before?

No, I had previously worked at a company called Slide, and I ran product there. We built Facebook apps that developed in 2007 when the Facebook platform had just launched.

Okay, and what made you want to start a startup?

I think I always knew that I wanted to create stuff except for the world, and it just was a matter of finding the right idea.

Okay, and so after a couple years at Slide, I decided it was the right timing. Also, because my brother, who would be my co-founder, had just graduated college, and I said, "Hey, you should just come out here; let's work on stuff." So we started working on stuff.

Did you have any, like, I don't know, apprehension about starting a company with your brother?

Not really. I think it's funny because my brother and I grew up kind of in separate worlds, so it's not like we were together all the time or knew each other's styles, so we weren't sure if we were compatible working together. So it was a little bit trial and error in the beginning, but having a sibling working with you, you know you can trust them and they're not gonna do anything horrible to you.

Yeah.

And so I think there was just that initial layer of trust that was okay, pretty good for us.

Yeah, and also I guess you were out here for only a couple of years; you didn't totally have a network either!

Exactly, right? Yep. Yeah, makes sense.

Cool! Alright, next question! Hotly asks, "How do you keep going if you can't raise any money?"

So you just have to keep your personal burn really low. And I would say this from experience where my brother and I weren't able to raise much money for two and a half, almost three years, and we were just able to just keep going in terms of trying to find users and stuff like that. You just got to be incredibly scrappy because obviously you can't afford to acquire any users, which is actually a good thing because it forces you to get out of your chair and you have to go talk to users. I guess the only way that you can get them to use your product.

And I think that's... I think going through a period of not having enough cash to work on your startup gives helps you develop a lean mentality, which is good to keep in court if you... if and when you raise money.

Mmm-hmm.

Had you raised before YC?

No, we hadn't.

Okay, and then you raised like a hundred...

Yeah, we raised a hundred K around demo day.

Yeah, and then used that for the next two and a half years?

Hmm.

That's kind of... that's amazing!

Yes, it was your own place, just the two of you?

It was just the two of us.

Wow.

Yeah, okay, cool! It was cheap to live in Mountain View at that point, so it wasn't really... well cheap! Relative, around that time it was about 900 bucks a month for like a one-bed, one-bath.

He took the white.

How much was YC money at the time?

It was, I believe we got 15K each.

Total?

Total. Total.

Okay, and then we raised 100K from someone else, and you made that last for two years?

12 years, yeah.

Wow! Just didn't do much besides working on us.

Yeah, there’s another question that's like further down the list, but somewhat related to, you know, keeping going or quitting. So Alejandro Repartee asks, "How or when do you decide to walk away from something that you started?"

So that’s a tough question. I think when you... I'm assuming he means the startup or an idea that you're bidding on. I think this was one of the things you actually have to think about before you start, which is, "Okay great, this is an idea, maybe you got some users, so on and so forth." Before we even think about raising money, or hiring people, you should really think about, "Is this something you want to do for the next five, six, seven, ten years?" Because success is way down the road. And I think if you can't imagine yourself doing that, then that's not something you should jump into.

Mmm-hmm.

But if it is, then certainly you should go for it. And then I think during a journey, your startup journey, if you ever start questioning yourself of, "Am I... am I in the right game or not?" then yeah, I think it's important to always zoom out and reevaluate. But I wouldn’t be doing it in the corner by yourself; I would always find a set of friends in the startup world, but also outside the startup world to give you some of that perspective.

And if that doesn't help, you know, you can always find a coach to help you talk through that. And then if you do have... if you have raised money, or you have employees, you do have responsibilities to them or to your investors as well as to your employees, which is not to say keep going because of that, but it's just to say you need to find a transitionary role or period in which you take care of all those duties.

Did you struggle with that at Homejoy?

No, I think we... No, not in particular. I think I just kept on going. I think there are times where we were like, "Are we working on the right idea or not?" Aaron and I, my brother who's my co-founder, we pivoted a dozen times before we got to Homejoy. So which was helpful. The fact that we pivoted that much, it was helpful in the sense that we learned how to push product out very, very fast, which was helpful when we finally got to the right idea.

But certainly every time you... when each time you pivot, you sort of just think, "Maybe... maybe two more weeks, maybe there’s one more feature, maybe, you know, maybe if I just got one more user and things will take off." And so you just have to step back and always reevaluate that.

How do you pivot twelve times? Because like where you ended up from the initial application isn’t that far! Did you like it?

Yeah, so we started with a marketplace for online services, and it was just a marketplace for an offline service, right? Starting with cleaning and then eventually some other home services.

Yeah, I don't... I don't know if that pathway could have been shortened or not. Okay, I do think we learned a lot along the way in terms of working with each other that really helped us to make that take off at the time that we came to it.

Do you remember what you did in between? Like was there anything that was just like objectively crazy?

There were a lot of terrible things. I mean, I think we also built... at least I built, over-engineered a lot of things because I thought it was cool to build and stuff. So, after... I’m not gonna remember all of them, but passed away. I was trying to connect service providers with clients. When that didn't start working out, when we couldn't find enough clients for the service providers, we had all these service providers. So we started... we were like, "What can we do with all these providers?" Well, they still needed clients. And we thought, "Okay, what if they just... we just made it into a Q&A site?"

So we had a Q&A site for a while. After a while, I think a lot of the service providers got tired of just creating freaked, essentially free content.

Okay, yeah.

They weren't getting paid.

Okay.

Yeah, they weren't getting paid for it. I mean, sort of kind of the pitch was if you write all this content, then it will help you develop your brand, right?

Yeah, marketing.

And then it rolled into a bunch of content sites, and then it turned into basically like a demand media type play, and we weren't just... I think by the time we rolled into that, we were just like, "This is not going to be huge, and we're not really into this." So, um, let’s just rethink the whole thing.

Yeah. Oh, to go back to your other ideas, you said you applied with like Atimepath ideas?

Well, right! No, yes. So on my application, I just reread it. I applied with the marketplace for online services, but there's a question on there which says your other ideas, and my other idea literally is Twitch!

Which is not to say that I made a mistake to not build it because I'm not quite sure I would have made that huge thing.

Yeah.

It’s just that it was just kind of funny for me to see that. You literally just brought like video game streaming?

No, it was just watching people play games and checking in and commenting and doing all these things kind of like ESPN for games essentially. And the reason how it came off idea was because I was always watching my brother play games, and he would also then go on YouTube and watch other people play games.

And I'm just like, "That's so weird to me!" But he was doing it, and like a bunch of other people were doing it. I was like, "Okay, there's something here."

Yeah.

But the thing is, I think I'm not really into games that much, and so I'm not quite sure that... I’m pretty... so confident when I worked out right.

Yeah, it may have been a little early as well at that point.

Yeah.

Life streaming was...

Yeah, yeah.

Cool! Alright, let's go to the next question! Chris Melnick McDonald asks, "What advice and lessons did you learn in entering the Canadian market?"

So with the Canadian market, just like any other international market, there were the custom... from the customer perspective, there wasn't that much of a difference. Everyone, you know, you have a dirty home and you need to get it cleaned, yeah, so on and so forth. From the cleaning professional side, the service providers, so that writer side, there are some differences there in terms of, you know, where do you or do people find jobs in the U.S.? It's Craigslist and other places; in other markets, it's something else. So there are those kind of differences that we had to learn about.

Mmm, but I wouldn't say they were super major. So there is how to acquire service providers; there are maybe unique channels to acquire customers in each one of the local markets. There were things just like weather, traffic, like where are the traffic jams, public transit, how are people actually going and going from house to house and that had to be all baked into the scheduling stuff. So anyway, going back to the Canadian point, it's not that there was nothing super special about Canada itself; it's just... it's just the fact that it's another market that we went into.

Mmm.

And then we also launched in Europe as well—Berlin, Paris, and London—and similar to that, there are... there are some locale differences and obviously language differences as well, yeah. But nothing super major.

So yeah, what are your pro tips then? Like if I'm expanding...

I think Canada is very close to the U.S. I'm expanding to Europe; what are your pro tips?

Um, for that is I’d go... I’d go to the market and identify the opportunity first, go talk to potential users. For us, we're a marketplace, so it had to be both sides, yeah—the users. And there were some markets where we looked at and I don't can't recall exactly the right cities, but that we decided just not to enter because we didn't think there was enough demand or supply there for us to make an impact.

But once you do that, then the other thing is if you're launching in one of these cities is to find somebody who's hopefully done this before, and we call them what we call them was the city launcher. So this person would go into the market, find the first few customers or sorry, find the first few service providers—first, we clean cleaning professionals—and then we would match them with the customers. And kind of, there was kind of like a manual back-and-forth going on to get the supply and demand running, and then they would find... and then if it worked out, then we would find a city manager, we would hire a full-time city manager to run the operations and be in charge of the P&L there, and I think sort of that playbook that's been played out now and so a lot of startups have, I think, executed on this well. So I think that's a pretty good framework.

Okay, okay, cool. So another question related to kind of like getting started, when you're small, Yah-ha alum Ronnie asks, "How do I work on culture, or do I even work on culture in the very early stage when I'm just building a team in a problem?"

So the number one thing about working on a startup is finding the right co-founders. Finding the right front-running co-founder is pretty much setting the culture because how you work with that person is going to parlay into probably how you work with other people. So I don't think it's like you need a handbook to write out your core values and all these things right away. I think it's much more important to know if your startup is going to survive or not, so how do you get your users? How am I going to make my first book?

I do think once you start hiring your first few employees, then that is an important time to try to figure out, try to articulate those things so that one, you're hiring the right people, but two, there are some people coming in who have some expectation of how things are going to be run.

How did you guys figure it out? Because there's like... there's so much unspoken with siblings.

Yes, determine what that's part of the company culture and what's just like you guys.

That's a good question. We wrote out our core values at some point. We had five or six of them, and that's the way we... that’s the framework Rito-san, which a lot of companies choose I think. But in the beginning, both of us would interview everybody and then we would actively talk about it, like, "Is this the right person? Would they work with us well?" and so on and so forth. And then go from there.

Okay, so kind of just like seeing if the person is a good fit rather than like explicitly writing all the values down?

Yeah, early days.

Yes, we eventually wrote all those values down, but I think in the beginning we were just looking for smart people who were going to work hard who wanted to help cleaning professionals get work or into the mission of the company.

Okay, cool! So another Homejoy question, Adam Sanders asks, "What was the best decision you made for Homejoy?"

So I think starting the company obviously I don't regret at all. We were able to bring a great crew of people to work together, and so what I am most happy about and most passionate about was the fact that we created a platform that created work for people who needed the work as well as did a service for people who were busy. And you know, having a clean home is one of those things that it's hard to say it's not articulate why, but when you have a clean home, you're just happier, and you're more relaxed. And so after a busy day of work, it's nice to be able to go home and just not have to clean it. So I think those two things—starting that company, I'm proud of that.

And yeah, like I said, I think our team was a great group of people who really cared, and I would take nothing back for that!

Yeah, cool! Next question, Huija Wal Chaunt Jehan asks, "Would love to know what's the one thing you would do differently in hindsight if you were to start over again?"

And I think that's like Homejoy in life context.

Yes, so, okay, so with Homejoy, there are so many things that I could have done a lot better, but if I had to aggregate a lot of them into kind of like one concept, like a bucket?

Yeah, a bucket.

It would be I would have prioritized unit economics much earlier in our company. So by that I mean, when you're building a marketplace, you're always in this constant battle of trying to figure out how to allocate resources between growth, user experience, and unit economics.

And so what we did was we obviously we heavily worked on all three of those things, but if you had to make me stack rank those three, user experience and growth came before unit economics.

So this makes sense if—and only really if—there is one ample funding available.

And what I would think three other things. So one is there are strong network effects; there are really strong network effects, or two there are strong economies of scale, or three there is a clear first mover advantage.

So one of those enable funding or a combination of those last three that I said—mmm-hmm—strong network effects, economies of scale, and first mover advantage.

But in the case in the cleaning space, it turns out that there are some of those there but not to the extent of Uber or Airbnb.

Yeah, and which meant that we did have an opportunity in hindsight to have a much slower growth model and still maybe come out at top—not winning in the long term.

And so, like I said, in hindsight, had I known about—had a foreseen what the dynamics of funding dynamics would have been when we needed to raise money, I would have certainly made the decision to at least equalize and put equal effort into, you know, those three things: growth, user experience, and economics, if not propelled that higher.

When you’re advising YC companies, do you kind of have a rule of thumb? I mean, every company's different, but say there was a company similar to Homejoy?

Yes, saying like you should be operating at like a whatever like X percent margin to be in a good spot?

Finding a particular—there's no constant margin you should be at. It's really dependent on the local market, I think, and the prices you can actually bear. But I do emphasize unit economics and user experience above growth, I think, unless in some very odd scenario— which there are very few—that like I said, there are really strong network effects and that I think you can potentially raise a lot of money to just drive through some not-so-great unit economics.

But in general, I don't think that's really the case.

Yeah, those are usually the catastrophic failures.

Yes!

Alright, next question! Nikita Butakov asks, "What are some unique data science and machine learning challenges you faced at Homejoy?"

So I think some of the cool things we worked on—well, there are a lot of things—but maybe I'll list the top three first that they come to my mind. One is we had to create a lot of prediction models for demand so that we knew how much supply to onboard so that supply and demand weren't out of whack.

Um, they’re always almost always out of equilibrium, out of whack, but you don’t want it to be too, too much imbalanced.

Another one we worked on is we did a lot of analysis on customers and finding out which kind of customers were the best for us in terms of lifetime value. And so we figured out things like we should be targeting pet owners, for example—they were like 2 to 3X more valuable than regular customers.

Okay.

And then finally, one of the more difficult challenges was scheduling when you have thousands and thousands of cleaning a day and you have references on both sides of the marketplace as well as things like transit issues and you don’t want people traveling too far from one house to another. And so forth, that was a difficult challenge to resolve.

Next question! Alejandro Repartee asks from Tim Ferriss, "How has a failure or apparent failure set you up for a later success?"

I hope people mostly take failures as a learning experience and not to let it get you down, but you should be honest with yourself and know what you learned from it.

And so, I mean, today, I advise—I help a lot of startups—and so I think the previous things that didn't work out for me, it provides a really strong foundation in a basis of how I can help people. But I always caveat that every time I help somebody, I always think, “Okay, what is the situation they're in?” It never is going to be a copy and paste from my experiences, and so I always think about that first and foremost.

And that's what I told most people when they get advice from people, especially if they're going around to way too many people, is that like you’re your own situation, and people will give you potentially directionally correct advice, but that's just directionally in the right direction.

Right? Like I said, it's not a complete one-to-one mapping.

Yeah.

And so you always should be taking that into account.

Yeah, it's difficult and it messes with your confidence if you take advice from too many people.

Yeah, especially when they're from all over the market. Like if I was starting a Homejoy type company now and I talk to you, yeah, I think I would take your advice.

Yeah, but just some random other startup founders, like why?

Yeah, you know.

Yeah, I know you must talk to so many founders that sorry—coming with patterns in your head.

I mean, that's like kind of the YC thing too, right? It's like just pattern matching.

Yeah, and unfortunately, so many of the pieces of advice just sound trite after a while.

Yes, because it's tweetable! But in reality, it's kind of like all about the nuance behind the scenes, right?

Yeah, I mean, you can tell. Like culture is important or whatever; go talk to users. There's so many ways to say that!

Stop burning money so fast!

Yeah, there's... and so all of these things are just like, at the end of the day, like you have to build the thing yourself and you have to have some confidence, because like taste matters a lot in your company, in your product, and if you don’t have your own opinion like I don't know how you're gonna go through it.

Yes, I agree!

Which is... yeah, I mean obviously you develop that over time; you're like, you're trying out 12, 13 different products before rounding into it.

Actually, I did want to go back because this was about, like, so something of failure for a later success. I wanted to talk about you doing your PhD!

Yes, well, because I think it's also interesting to people.

Yeah! Would you regard that as a failure?

I would regard that not as a failure but as time. Sometimes I wish I had that time to get back, yeah, and I could have been working on creating things instead of, you know, creating I don't know, economic models and being a data monkey and, you know, trying to do simulations and stuff like that on all my fancy...

Yeah, fancy very academic models.

And so, but yeah, I spent right after I graduated from undergrad, I actually got a degree in computer science and didn't... I come from South Carolina, and there for the reason, you know, that your choices are a little limited in terms of what you're exposed to. So I was never exposed to Silicon Valley, was never exposed to tech startups or any of these things. So, you know, by the time I was like 20, I just didn't even know that existed yet.

Mmm-hmm.

And so the thing I decided to do because I didn’t want to work at a big company as a code monkey was to go get a PhD in economics which sounds weird, but I was doing some engineering work for an econ professor, and so I fell deeply in love with the idea of becoming an econ professor.

Yeah.

But I generate a lot more meaning in value doing what I'm doing today.

Yeah, value definitely, meaning—I don't know, people like make their own meaning!

Yeah!

For me personally, that I am no qualms with people who decide to become econ professors, right?

Yeah, totally!

Question— are there any side projects you’re building side projects right now to keep that product-building?

I don't know, gene muscle working.

Yeah!

I started working—I started... well, this is one of the things because I'm not working a startup. I start a lot of things; I see something cool and then just like start working on it. But... so one on this thing, I'm trying to adapt right now on Ethereum and just playing around with the solidity and all these things.

We're starting to invest in a lot of the crypto blockchain startups now, and so I think it's really important that I truly understand how this stuff is built, so I’m doing that.

And nothing else major besides that, but I'm always... I always like tinkering around with something.

It's always tough, like I've had the same itch, and I desperately only want to complete things. I hate letting things like die on the vine.

Yes!

But it's hard because, yeah, I'm equally curious!

Yes! Just run—I go back away for a weekend and like see what happens!

Yes!

Well, what's the last thing you thought out this week that was like auto transcribing podcast?

Oh, that's right! News!

Yeah, yeah! Which, speaking of unit economics, I might be like committing the mortal sin of selling a dollar for 80 cents because you still have a human doing it!

Yeah, acting like the little stuff!

Yeah, got it! So I have to figure out, like either full-time employees or Mechanical Turk, which I've never gotten good results from at scale!

Actually, like at a scale a little bit larger than what we're at right now, I could have someone full-time like fixing podcasts!

Yeah!

But right now it's a lot of like Craig waking up at 5 in the morning and being like "Do something!" because I'm doing it!

Have I created my own $5 an hour job?

So dumb!

Okay, raise prices!

Yeah! You can always raise prices!

Yeah, I think that's a fear that I personally like have but should be okay with breaking!

Yeah, because I didn’t, yeah!

I knew that if I started too high, I wouldn't get enough customers. Fortunately, I didn't give away any free demos!

If I gave away free demos—and because we hit one on a Chen, and if we were doing free demos it would have been a disaster!

Yeah, this is a very actually classical error not to pounce on you or anything!

Oh, no! I mean, I did it myself at Homejoy too, which is to get the first few users in the door!

People tend to want a discount and then what you haven't done yet is that you continue discounting, and then all of a sudden you have a stream of just the worst kind of users because the people that come in just because of the discount are super value-driven.

So they want the cheapest thing and they want the ten-star service for what you can only provide at maximum as a five-star experience, and they always drive the most customer service costs, and it's just a big headache!

So it's good. It's maybe okay to get the first few in because I mean, what they're hopefully also giving you in return is a lot of feedback and improving on the experience and stuff like that, but at some point, you definitely don't want to be scaling that.

Definitely not!

Yeah, no, I mean it's only like a couple, a handful right now, so it's like totally fine, but I mean I just honestly didn't know if people wanted it in that so I was like this would be an easy way to find out!

It turns out they do!

Yeah, and it's a lot of work!

Yes! Podcasting is getting really popular; it's crazy! And the need to edit a lot of them is pretty high too!

Yeah!

You know, we were doing the—not to make this a Craig podcast—but we were doing the text-based audio editor for a while and I found that I was using it a little bit and I was using the other ones like Descript and there are some competitors, but I'm still so much more proficient in Premiere!

But at the end of the day, I still wanted transcripts!

Yes!

I was like this is a product I want!

Yes!

And yeah, turns out... so they did. It's transcripts, and then you can also edit it basically—we killed that man, killed editing!

Yeah, because it's really interesting on the technical side—but yeah, like I said, it wasn't the product that I needed anymore!

Got it!

Which is... I'm a little rare because I do video as well!

Okay!

But yeah, it's a lot more helpful like when you put it on the blog that there is a transcript there as well to follow and look back on, and probably search through as well, I imagine!

Yeah, so it's kind of... it's multifaceted! So it's like SEO for sure, sharing because we can generate little quotes and stuff. Some people only read podcasts!

Yes!

Which is like, personally, as like an affront, but that's fine!

Are you a 2x listener?

No!

Really?

I've done 4, but as I used to do it, and then I realized I was talking faster!

Yes, because we've talked about this before, but like you and I would like be at home all day and not talk to someone, and I had a moment where I was like I've only listened to podcasts at a coffee shop, talking to the folks that like to XP!

Yeah!

There's—if you listen—if all you do all day is just listen to things at 2X, and then you go talk to somebody, you always wonder, like why are you talking so slow?

They're talking normal speed, but it's like you are talking unbearably slow right now!

So, yeah, I've actually met a couple podcasters in person after I was listening to them at 2X speed.

I was like, "Oh my god, you're so slow!"

And then you get really used to listening to podcasters, so you know—I’ve listened to Joe Rogan, I’ve heard so many of his episodes that I'm basically like...

Know the anecdotes?

Yes!

That’s coming up!

Yeah!

It’s like skip, skips!

But anyway—yeah, podcasting is awesome! TBD how much money there is in yes, cause it's all like content marketing or a lot of content marketing right now!

Yes!

Yeah, I agree!

Yeah, cool! Alright!

Next question: CM Mac F, I'm not going to pronounce that last name, asks, "What are the best practices when reaching out cold to an investor?"

Really easy: keep it short; say what you want to say, if you can do in two or three sentences! And then ask a specific question which is, "Can we get to knock?" which is not "Can we get coffee?" which is actually something that they can answer that would help you with.

Yeah!

And that's not to say that that investor would never meet with you; it's just you have to remember these investors are getting lots of these emails, and they're also, yeah, you like, their job is to take meetings from people that are entering them.

So all these warm intros, and so you just need to figure out a way to develop a relationship with that person.

And one way is just to have a back-and-forth over email over time.

Yeah!

Then when it becomes interesting enough—basically when I get to the point where I'm writing three or four paragraphs back, I'm like, "Okay, never mind, let's just get on the phone or meet in person because this has now gotten to the point where I'd like to actually talk to you for a long bit."

Yeah!

And also, investors hang on the same sites that hackers hang out on and like product people hang out on. So if you're out there making stuff, you can get attention!

Oh yeah!

Oh, yeah! Reddit, AK news, all these places—yeah, they're all there!

Like they hang out on product hunt; it's like you don't have to just like pretend!

The only email is a way to get their attention!

Yes!

Because this is like one of those things that's like you make up these like little excuses for yourself where, "I'm never gonna work out," and like that's just cheating!

Right!

I agree!

Alright, next question! From a name with a bunch of emoji in it, I think it says Riley Saurus there, they asked, "Is Uber for X still a thing that people would invest in in the U.S.?"

So I definitely think so! I mean, we've seen the scooter craze going on now!

I think that when I think about Uber for X, I think it's push a button and a bunch of logistically hard operational things happen in the back, and then you get a product or service like within a few seconds, few minutes, within a day or something like that.

And that to me shouts convenience, and I think a lot of people want convenience. That's something people want!

Yeah, and so I think there's always products and services to be built in the Uber for X realm!

Yeah!

And I think that, yes, there's definitely less—overall less money being put into it than say four to five years ago.

But—and that's a result of investors understanding and learning about what these business and models look like, the fact that most of these businesses grow a little bit slower so that you can build up a great user experience, and understand they understand that you need unit economics much better as well!

Yeah!

And so there's, I would say, not as much hype, but there certainly, if you're growing and you have good retention and good engagement, you certainly can probably get funded.

Has there been a large success that was kind of like a follow-on company in this way? Like work kind of like a copycat or just like a derivative example?

I'm trying to... I mean, you know, like... well, so using the Uber for X example, then you just like, "Oh, we're gonna..." you know, this thing because it's just like Uber.

Oh, I mean, when Uber came out there were a lot of these like "uber for cookies" and he's like, "I know," there are a million failures—I've been... yeah, we're looking for success!

Yeah!

I mean, there, I wouldn't group all this into kind of the sharing economy stuff!

Yeah!

Well, so if you look at mobility, there's cars, bikes, scooters now, yikes!

Mmm-hmm!

Outside of that, let's see... yeah, that's a good question! For some reason, nothing jumps in my mind!

I'm sure it exists, but I think it's just not like a dominant player, like something massive!

Yeah!

I don't... I can't think of anything massive, except for, let's see... if we go to Asia and China, all the food delivery stuff is rocking and rolling there!

Seems here actually!

I mean there's a Tandoor too—so I think that's working well!

There's some storage companies that may do well!

Yeah, there's no nothing... though I mean if we try to compare it to Uber, I think it's gonna be very hard!

Right!

But actually, I'm... yeah, I'm so wrong because, like, Google wasn't the first search engine!

So it's definitely not about being...

Yes, yes!

So yeah! Alright, next question! Is a Phaidore Paretsky... they asked, "Have YC's views changed on cryptocurrency blockchain-related startups since Coinbase and their Coinbase is a YC company?"

Right, so has it changed?

I think we've learned a lot more just because there's more activity in this!

Yes!

I think every partner probably has a different viewpoint of it.

For me personally, I'm super excited about what's going on! I think in general, people should be generally excited when a lot of smart people are working on something diligently!

And I think there's a lot of tools and stuff like that still to be built for this to take off.

But if I try to game out how far this could go, I just think the possibilities are limitless!

So the thing that really excites me are, when you look at countries, cities or countries in which there are bad currencies or just bad financial infrastructure.

I think these are obvious places where blockchain and crypto can help a lot and move them forward, if not even leapfrog maybe other countries!

And then there's other... and then similarly in those countries usually there's also issues with like property rights and stuff like that!

So I've talked to folks in Greece and places in South America where the concept of who owns land—like each piece of land—is almost non-existent!

It's somewhere in a drawer, maybe in pencil and paper, but even then, who knows if that's real?

And so I think if any of these countries or cities are serious about it, they could leapfrog, you know, centralized services and just put it onto the blockchain!

And wouldn't it be cool if you do that?

Not only will one... well, one is just identifying who owns property!

Like that would drive, I think, economic growth in itself because it would incentivize people to actually do stuff!

But on top of that is increasing the more transactions that can happen!

So even in America, trying to buy property or exchange property is extremely hard!

It's extremely expensive, and it seems to be unnecessarily so!

And so anyway, I think likely in registries is an example of something I would be super excited about to see happen!

Is that the DAP you're building?

No, I don’t build—inverse in...

Oh, is it just like building a blog, sending myself fake tokens?

I mean it's on the...

Yeah, it's... but the thing that comes to mind for me with crypto and blockchain is I think there's a lot of skepticism because of what's being built right now!

But actually, I think that what's being built now is... are the right things being built in the sense that one, it's such a new technology that there are still so many issues—potential security issues—and putting the wrong types of smart contracts on there.

And so now you see a slew of consultants and also companies doing security audits, and we've just invested in a couple companies that are building AI to help ensure better security and ensure that the economies don't go out of whack and stuff like that!

And so I think doing playful things and building playful apps is actually the right way to help develop the ecosystem because you don't want— I think super serious things on there without all of this stuff being built already!

Right!

One of the things that we talked about earlier was I think it's super important for this to go anywhere as well! We need UX people and product people, right?

Right now, it is just way too hard for somebody to use these stuff!

You know, do you know what the DAU use for DAPs are?

Sorry, yes!

I'm guessing it's really small!

Yeah!

Ten thousand!

Wow!

Okay, that was pretty good! I don’t know the exact number now, but the last time I read it was like around...

I just know like how much of a pain in the ass MetaMask is!

Yes, install it and then you’ve got to, you know, move money to it and all this stuff!

So yeah, I think that needs to be solved before this goes mainstream!

And I think it's all... these things are solvable!

Yeah!

It just needs to be built, and with due time, it will be built.

And we're more than happy to help accelerate this by investing in startups who are building this stuff!

And the other thing is also I think more of a pure branding thing, I just think the word blockchain has been thrown around so many times that people don't fully understand what it means!

For sure!

And so there's a bit of an education!

I sort of think that when it goes mainstream we don't need to use the word blockchain per se!

Just like we don't use the word database to explain Facebook!

Yeah!

You know, like my parents don't know what Ajax is!

Yeah, it's not important!

Yes, exactly! Just need to tell them what it does!

Yeah, it's ultimately it's the product!

Yes!

But I think with like so many smart people working on it, it seems highly unlikely that something won't come out of it!

Yeah, that's so cool! Probably related to that question, Manavi asks, "What type of companies is YC seeing more of for this batch?"

We've seen a lot more applications on the crypto blockchain front, so super excited about that! We continue to see more applications on AI, machine, particularly machine learning and deep learning in the applications for it across so many fields now, and so that’s excited!

I don’t think we’ve seen anything where we’ve seen complete automation yet of anything really!

But it's kind of cool that we're building tools and stuff like that to help doctors, people in the field doing work and stuff like that!

And what else are we seeing? Biotech!

Seeing lots of those, which is exciting! Particularly the intersection of software and biology!

And then also we just launched our YC Bio program, which all the companies go through the three-month program that all the other startups go through, but it's targeted towards people or companies that are still in the lab research phase.

And we're focused on what's on the sub-area right now, which is healthspan and longevity!

And so we've seen a lot of those, and we're really excited about that!

Do you have a strong opinion on how long you think you're gonna live?

I don't know, I hope for a long time!

I would like to live over a hundred, I guess!

Okay!

Or whatever the current life expectancy is, which is lower than 78!

Yes!

Like that!

I mean I try to do all the things to make sure I'm healthy and sane, but I've, you know, I don’t... I don’t do any drugs or anything—

Yeah!

I self-go, no caloric restriction!

Oh so, I mean I've tried doing that, and I didn't notice any specific change other than like a little bit of weight loss!

Yeah!

But I actually go back and forth on that a little bit!

I'm trying it out!

Oh really?

So I do the whole like, I've done in three, six month spans, the whole 18... yeah, don't eat for 18 hours!

And actually like the first week, it looked kind of hard!

It's just like probably any diet you go on, it's like the first week, it's kind of hard.

But it's actually pretty simple, and I haven't done the whole fast for like 48 hours thing, though!

Have you?

Yeah!

That's fine!

You feel better—fine!

You get used to it!

I mean the first... like by the end of the first day, you really are starting to get hungry, and then you push through it, and then you could go like another day or two and be totally fine!

Mmm-hmm!

I mean, but also my body fat isn't like 1%, right?

So maybe if I was like that skinny, it would be different!

Yeah, but yeah, I'm similar to you!

Like I've tried everything out!

I know when I do the intermittent fasting or whatever, I can be leaner!

Yes!

But the selling point is that you're gonna live longer!

It was just like, hard to feel a difference!

And like ultimately with all this stuff, I'm... I'm just kind of like, "Man, you gotta live!"

Yeah!

I want to hang out with my friends and like have a beer!

Granted, yeah!

So I also want to make it to 200!

I don't know, we'll see!

We got some time!

Yeah!

I want to make it pretty far and still have an active mind, I think that it's probably most important for most people!

Yeah!

Just having an active mind still!

Yeah!

It seems like the further we can push the quality of life, happier we're gonna be overall!

Because it's not really about like...

Yeah, a lot of people lose it well before 78!

Right? So cool!

Alright, next question! Yah-ha alum Ronnie asks, "What are the best marketing strategies for a year one B2C startup?"

So the best ones are always the unpaid ones!

I think—I mean this is almost a cop-out—but if you build a product that people love, they're going to talk about it, and that's the best way to grow!

I think tactically speaking, there are other things you can do.

Content marketing, which you're an expert in, so you can talk more about that!

And there are other tactical things!

If you're a consumer product and then if you won’t come into your website and no one's signing up or anything, one of the things that this seems like counterintuitive advice, but is to just put a phone number on there!

Mmm-hmm!

And people still want to call!

People still like to talk to people!

Surprised? I installed the Drift or Intercom product until last year!

People use it all the time!

Yeah!

I mean it should be obvious because it's like successful company!

Yes!

They use it all the time!

Yep!

Yeah, so having a chat on there, putting a number on there, it’s actually a good thing because if no one's signing up, at least you can talk to these people and figure out what it is that they want or what's going wrong!

So finding just easy ways for people with contact use also another way!

Mhm!

Yeah, I mean I would just... over the content marketing, I would say don’t waste your time if you’re not gonna make something good!

Mmm, because it is really easy to get on the content marketing treadmill and be like, "Oh man, we just gotta like bang out this stuff, put something out every week!"

And if you look at like the analytics on YC content, it's like a power-law with like the... the stuff that gets the most attention is definitely not linear!

And, and even just the things I’m sure with you as well, like the things you work on—you’re like, dude, I did that article in like two days!

Okay, thirty years later you're talking to me about the ones with the least amount of effort you get the most views!

It's crazy!

I don't know!

Yeah, I mean maybe you should just write like silly, pithy tweets!

Do lists still work well?

Because one of the top posts is that essential advice!

Oh yeah, that works well!

The... I mean we couldn't replicate that essential YC advice post because that was an aggregation of you posting over time!

People like lists!

People like book lists!

Mmm-hmm!

But do you also want to think like, why are the people even reading it?

Like we can—with a lot of our content, we could get more attention by interviewing like YouTube celebrities!

But to what end?

Yeah!

I was talking to someone who watches the channel and they were like, "Oh that's cool! I like all your like science and tech videos! What's Y Combinator?"

And so you, if you're like not getting them all the way through the door, it's... especially when you're tiny, and like you don't have a full-time person making stuff!

Yes!

Yeah, I would just figure out like what actually works for you!

It might focus on doing a good job of it rather than just mailing it in!

Sure!

Because that stuff is... I’ve never had luck with!

Yeah!

Do you think that it’s articles that work best?

I guess maybe it's depending on the product, or do you think podcasts, videos, like what form—what medium works?

Yes!

I think people still undervalue the ability to write clearly!

There aren't that many people that can write well!

So if you can get someone who can write well specifically in a niche and then get a channel to engage with it like HN, you can get a ton of traffic because people can consume the entirety—for the most part—consume the entirety of the content!

Whereas with the podcast, like you have to be like hardcore like podcaster or YouTuber!

YouTube works pretty well!

YouTube works pretty well when we cut it up into Clips, right?

But if you look at the retention, like it’s like anything, like there’s a huge amount of drop-off!

Right!

Whereas with the article so it’s easier to do, right?

But I found like I don't always have a great thing to write!

Mmm-hmm!

And the podcast is a much easier way to keep consistent!

Or there—not to make this into a podcast about content marketing!

To me, intriguing, are there like blogs or like what companies do you feel like do content marketing really well?

Mmm-hmm!

I would break it apart into different categories!

Mmm-hmm!

Actually, I think like... not to, you know, blow YC’s like a trumpet, but I think PG did a great job!

I think like YC is actually like one of the best content marketing companies ever!

Except they would never say that!

But like HN + PG essays are content marketing!

Sure!

I think on the companies, I think like 37 Signals—Basecamp does a really good job!

Those guys have like established themselves as thought leaders but also make content that's pretty relevant!

And they're... they're gutsy enough to have an opinion!

Mmm-hmm!

Whereas a lot of people aren’t!

Sure!

Strong opinions matter and probably get more views!

Yeah!

Especially when it's contrarian, right?

So they're like they exist in the software space, but they've like pushed pretty hard to be kind of independent!

Yeah, in a similar way like Indie Hackers did quite well for that!

So I think that like that stripe acquisition made a lot of sense because people connect to Cortland!

Sure!

I think Intercom has done a really good job!

But I mean, honestly, like I pay attention to a lot of people on YouTube!

Because I think for the most part, like Silicon Valley still doesn't understand how big it is!

Okay!

Like just the amount of pure traffic and consumption, it's a rabbit hole!

It's insane!

I found myself watching some weird videos after two or three hours!

There's like one after the next step to the next step—Phoenix!

And you're like...

So we did a podcast with them, Casey and I!

Yeah!

And like he gets more views a week than almost any TV show!

And you're just like, "What? This guy like rides a boosted board around?"

And then you find out that he's like representing a significant percentage of Boosted sales!

Mmm!

Just this one dude in New York and you know, he’s super talented, and that’s like a lifetime of work!

I get a ton of creative energy!

But it works really well like if you can find someone like that!

So yeah!

And I think also... but then like on the SEO side, like I think NerdWallet has done a great job!

Alright!

Like they have all those like best credit card type things!

And it's not like spammy!

Yeah!

So yeah, we did a whole content marketing podcast actually!

Oh yeah?

First Round and Andreessen Horowitz!

Oh cool!

Yeah, so we're like... oh that's right!

Alright, next question! Yah-ha alum Ronnie asks, "What would you say to a founder from a third world country where there is a big lack of tech talents and you can't compete with big corporations due to a lack of resources in terms of hiring?"

So the way to always get around this is to seem more exciting than these big corporations, and one way is if you're technical, you just build the product yourself and start getting users.

And when you start growing and you start getting revenue, you can probably go poach these people.

I always think that in a big company, there's always like a fellow entrepreneur in there somewhere, stuck somewhere!

And another, but if you’re not technical, it's a little bit harder, but there are enough SaaS tools out there these days where like Weebly and all these things where you can just patch together, I think something, and get something out there and iterate a bit to the point where you can also get users!

Yeah!

And revenue!

And I even see today like engineers—like real engineers—they're sort of embarrassed to do it, but they have to do it, and they'll just like put up a Shopify site first!

Yeah!

They totally hate it because they're like, "I can do this much better if I customize it myself," but in reality, like that’s how you’re gonna get your first few users quickly!

Who's doing that?

And so once you do that, then again you can go through the same cycle of trying to go find people to join you!

Yeah!

With something that looks exciting!

Yeah, I mean I would encourage people with like sales aptitudes to get people to pay them!

Because if you're good at sales, you’re probably good at convincing people to think that your product is good before it exists!

Yeah, and only once they give you money do you know!

Yes, they really want it!

Yes!

I've made that mistake before!

Alright, aspiring angel asks, "What’s the best way for investors interested in startup seeder angel funding to get started? And how does location affect that process?"

So I think these days it's really easy to get started.

I think one place you can go is we have a sort of investor school that we held a few weeks back that one of the partners here, Jeff Ralston, did an amazing program with it!

It's all in YouTube!

And it’s on YouTube, yeah!

And so I would watch all of those a couple times!

And then another thing to do is there are, like we said earlier, there's a lot of online communities where people are making things!

And so just start hanging out there and talking to founders and seeing how they think!

And more importantly, if not most importantly, is using the products!

Mmm-hmm!

And figuring out, you know, developing hypotheses on, "Is this gonna get big? How could this get big? You know, work at this go."

And then finally, just contacting the founders!

I think founders, especially when they're starting off, no one's really talking to them that much!

I think if you reach out to them, I think some of them, some percentage of them will be more than happy to start talking to you!

Yeah!

What about when you, you start talking to a founder, and say you're even talking to a YC founder and you feel like the price is high?

Mmm-hmm!

I would say if you're starting—if you're doing early-stage investing, price should not be really an issue!

Because in venture business it's the exit that counts!

And I don't—and you shouldn't be investing, I think, in a company that you don't think it's actually gonna do well to whatever standard it is!

Like it doesn't have to be a billion dollars, but you know, to whatever standard you want it to be!

And honestly, like at the end of the day, valuation is supply and demand, and that is what drives some of those evaluations.

And so sometimes you just have to pay up to get involved!

Yeah!

Alright, last question!

So, Adora, you've been at YC now for two and a half years roughly!

How has your view of startups in the world in general changed since then?

So despite all the horrible stories in the news, I have actually become much more optimistic about life in the world and startups in general!

I think, you know, we are at work—I see we're sitting in a pretty privileged position of, you know, to spend a lot of our time thinking about problems, talking with founders here trying to solve these problems, and then seeing all these new cool technologies that they're creating that I certainly couldn't do myself!

And so I think when I think about if just some of these people do well, like the world can change for the better!

And so, yeah! So I'm just optimistic!

I guess more optimistic!

What about yourself?

I'm in complete agreement!

I mean I think that's like it's too easy if you read the news to believe that everything is black and white!

Yeah!

There are... I didn't quite realize it until I was at YC that like people want to treat Silicon Valley broadly, and YC specifically, as kind of like the Yankees.

And so it's sort of... it sort of doesn't matter what you do; there're always gonna be like haters up there!

But seeing people come in, like specifically when they're just like—they're there building, you know, like artificial wombs and like all this crazy stuff that's going to be the future, and it's super exciting!

So, yeah!

I mean my personal strategy is to just like not pay attention to stuff!

Yeah!

And like talk to people who are building things!

Yeah!

You know what is really somewhat indicative of this is the scooters!

Like when I got—when I fell in love with it, and I just really—yeah!

I just like, "This could change mobility within us!"

Not just scooters, but bikes, and you remember these other...

Anavy and stuff like that!

But then once it started taking off, people just started making fun of it!

Right?

What is this, San Francisco thing? And like ruining everything, and everyone looks like dorks riding them!

But then the critics, I think, started—some of them anyway, I think, riding these scooters!

And they're like, "Oh, it's actually—like I can see, I can see why this could be a thing!"

And so just by using it and being part of it!

And so I think there are some of these barriers maybe a week that are... that are dropping!

Well, I think a lot of companies and products have done a bad job at making people feel included!

Yes!

I think that people react strongly when they feel like they don't have any agency!

And so, you know, it's ironically right?

Like people will be tweeting something about how terrible something and Silicon Valley is and how people are terrible!

And then you meet the people here, and they're just like, "I don't know, I just like want to make something cool!"

Yeah!

So there's this very weird divide!

Yes!

That that's kind of just in people's heads!

Yes!

And I think in this age, it's everyone's responsibility to know at least try to predict the reaction of anything you put out there!

Yeah, because, you know, the world is at where it is now for better or worse!

Yeah!

And so it's just been great!

Thoughtful what you put out there is actually important!

Yeah!

Totally!

I mean, yeah, overwhelmingly positive, and I think technology is much bigger than a little app on your phone!

Yes!

Keeping that in mind, I think it keeps you excited!

Yes!

Yes! Cool!

Alright, well thanks so much for making time!

Thank you so much!

Have fun!